As near as I can tell, the spoiler was someone who saw the preview and made everything up <g>

Which is much better than a real spoiler, out to take the joy of any surprises in an ep. I'm glad Farscape was better at keeping things mum.

Tho you could tell when someone had overheard something- they'd take it to the nth degree, making it in their mind the reveal that whole season arc would hinge on, and then when it turned out to be a 5 minute plot point was over almost as soon as it was introduced, they'd refuse to let go of it, having built it up epic proportions in their minds.

Tho as this is the Doctor Who thread, they keep spoilers readily available in the UK. Being as it's a children show, and a lot of the viewers are under 7, they like to let out plot points and characters out a bit at the time, so the kids can follow comfortably by the time the show actually airs. Children are fans of the familar.

I do the same thing when I prescreen shows like Doctor Who or Sarah Jane Adventures for my 4yr old neice, to prepare her. Its up to adults to keep their heads clear of the news, if they dont want that same sort of treatment <g> The older sisters hate it if they hear my answers to her questions "Can't you just tell her she has to watch the show to find out?"

Upshot is, I've learned to be more discreet when preparing her, so the older ones remain spoiler free. In a couple of years tho, she'll be old enough to watch without me dribbling who will live and die and what the creatures are, ahead of time.

Those spoilers were from that quagmire known as http://www.doctorwhoforum.com/.I can't even read it anymore, too many people donating their opinion on stuff they don't even know about.

So I got to see bits and pieces of the Xmas special. But I never found out how or why that guy thought he was the Doctor? Could somebody explain that to me. (I usually watch it on youtube, but the BBC has been extremely efficent in pulling video clips of that episode off the site.)

It was a nice ending to the story... although the big Cybermonster was alittle too much.

In reply to remarks from another thread - (I mean - it's just us reading this, so we can all follow along <g> - that's the Heroes thread to you lurkers out there )-

The Doctor Who specials are said to be a budget cutting measure - I got this from fans in the UK, so it's not been verified - the show went over budget 2008, so this is the payback year. By doing just a few specials they can do spectacular stuff with them, and spend less than the year before. The logic in this theory seems ... a bit flawed to me, which makes me wonder how much of it is based on the rumor mill, or something made up by the Sun. But then again, it is government spending ... logic is not exactly the strong suit of that system. <g>

As for the secrets of the 2008 Christmas Special, the Next Doctor ...well, as this is the season 4 thread, or 2008 thread, I guess we can talk about here.

Spoilers here-As it hasnt aired anywhere on this side of the Atlantic

<spoiler>The Next Doctor became the Doctor when he was, with his family, attacked by Cybermen. You may have seen that he was camping out with Rosita in rooms full of luggage of a 'dead man'? That was actually his family's luggage. You recall that, without an internet or power grid to plug into, the cybermen were reduced to sharing information via infostamps, modules the size of brick that stored vast amounts of information on one subject that it could relay thru pictures, and apparently putting the information directly into the neural pattern of the brain. But if you damaged it and caused some sort of power overload into it, energy would leap out and fry the nearest cybermen circuits till the charge ran out.When John was traveling with his wife and son, the cybermen attacked. John struggled as they killed his wife and carried off his son, and while he was still in shock, he managed to trip an info stamp, damaging it a bit, and got the Doctor's information downloaded directly into his brain. Since he was still in shock and grief, he clung to that information rather than face what had happened - and attacked the cybermen with all he had learned from the Doctor, as well as his own rage and grief. Those who werent killed - the ones carrying off his son, at least, came way with the imperfect information downloaded into them and truly thought he was the Doctor. And for all intents and purposes, he was the Doctor, running around investigating, saving strangers in dire need, and facing the unknown and all dangers with nothing but a clever man's wit and bravery, and a bit of excitement and love of the game, as it distracted him from the past he couldnt fully face. The gaps in his knowledge, he filled in with inventions of his own - didnt you love his tardis he created? And the way he dreamed of defeating his foes, so he could fly off in space and time again, and escape all his pains in some new adventure. But when he found his son, he gave it up, the Doctor made him give it up, rather than risk the child being made an orphan. He was, that next Doctor, in the end, the man who saw truly into the Doctor's heart, and the one man that the Doctor could not refuse an offer of Christmas dinner - someone who understood that every celebration with friends and family is also an occasion to mourn those who are missing from it. If John could face that, his wife just dead, the Doctor couldnt pretend it was his problem alone, and not part of everyone's journey in life.</spoiler>

Cybus, but in order for events that followed to make sense, they must have downloaded information about the Doctor's future exploits with Mondas Cybermen - for which we'll say they learned well from their time taking over Torchwood (Doctor's universe)